It's an honor that you've allowed us to try and help with
your family and life issues.
Thank you very much for visiting.
Please return soon.

Love & Hugs,
Glen

Tips On Budgeting-2 completes the tips to control your budget,
including a Family Budget Worksheet and other tools in our Financial Management Planning Help pages,
with debt, mortgage, investment and job help.

Tips On Budgeting-2

Budgeting Tip 12:
Needs-vs-Wants: One of the most
powerful tools in budgeting is the ability to tell the difference between needs
and wants. We've designed the Worksheet
to show you things you are required to pay. Don't confuse this with
needs. A significant amount of consumer credit debt, and possibly some of
house payment, maintenance, even food can be wants...not needs. You must
assess whether an item is a 'need or want' before you purchase it. We'll
cover what you do with 'wants' a little later. First, let's look at some
examples of 'needs'. The 'need' part of a house is minimum family/dining
room, parent bedroom, 1 bath, and, if required, 1 bedroom for boys and 1 for
girls. The 'need' part of a car is what is minimally required for your
regular transportation needs (some would argue that no car is a 'need').
The 'need' part of your groceries is what is minimally required to sustain you
and allow your children to grow. Even though I listed them as 'not
required' expenses, cell phone and internet access are 'needs' only if they are
required for your business and only if they are not provided by your
employer. Cell phones are never 'needs' for children of any age. For
all my spend-happy friends; cable TV, microwave, patio set, jewelry, second
purse, fishing pole, Lexus, golf clubs, steak, and Christmas gifts are never
'needs'. If you have trouble assessing the difference between needs and
wants, visit Compulsive
Shopping Addiction. Your spending problem may be more than a passing
season.

Budgeting Tip 13:
Getting what you want: If you're saving
for your future, you have 'rainy day' cash and your monthly income exceeds your
expenses, I have good news...you can have all your wants. If not, try
this: We keep a "Wannas" list for everything we want that we
can't pay cash for. We list everything we want, along with an estimate of
its price. Then, we put the list in order of most important to least
important. Next, we put a regular amount in monthly savings. When
our savings (over the 'rainy day' balance) exceeds the value of the first item,
we take the money out and buy the item with cash.
By
saving and paying cash instead of using credit cards,
you save 20% on the purchase of every item (17% credit card interest and 3%
savings interest). You get an added benefit,
I call the 'cooling off period.' By the time you save enough money for the
item, you often don't feel you want it any more. I'll prove this to
you. You know how important the things you want to buy right now
are. You can name them, the color, the feel, the price. I'll bet you
even know how some of your friends will react when you show them you own
it. If you think these things will be that important to you in a year,
once you've saved for them, you'll have no problem doing this: Take your
credit card statements out and total the balances. Now, list the names and
prices of the items you bought to make up those balances.
Most people are paying hundreds of dollars each month for
things they no longer even know they have. If I just described you, take a look at Debt
Free Living Help for instructions on how to use this budget system to
eliminate your debt.

Budgeting Tip 14:
There is great power in budgeting future income...the increases in net income
you receive due to promotion, etc. I
remember I used to figure out how much my pay was going to increase, then accept
a new credit card so I could charge enough to make the minimum payment increase
match the increase in my net pay. This is NOT what I mean by
budgeting future income. Since your increases in pay are not spent, yet,
there is no better time than now to budget for them. Simply, put in
writing a promise to yourself what percentage of future increases will go
where. For example: 20 % to donations, 20 % to savings, 40 % to pay
down debt, 10 % to recreation, 10% to investment. Until you're debt-free,
I'd suggest a large amount to pay down debt.

Budgeting Tip 15:
You need more than one bank account. If
everything stays in your checking account, it won't stay long. You need to
stash money in accounts you don't use for regular expenses. In order for
this budget system to work, in addition to your checking account, you need a
separate account for Impound, Savings, Large Purchase Savings, and
Investment. Most banks or credit unions can split these off of your basic
account and allow for transferring between them (they may have different names,
like Christmas Club, Money market, etc.). Have your pay go to your
checking account. Then, every month, transfer the budgeted amounts for
savings, investment and impound total, etc. to their respective accounts.
Sometimes you can tell them how much to automatically transfer and you don't
have to worry about it. When the Impound items are due (Christmas, for
instance), transfer the total amount for that item out of Impound and back into
checking to pay for the item. When it's time to buy that car, transfer the
money from Large Purchase Savings to your checking account. Imagine buying
a new car with a check! You will get there if you follow your budget.

Tips On Budgeting Conclusion:
It doesn't matter where you are in your financial
planning, if you truly have financial planning, you'll want a budget that you
follow. If you're new to this it may take a few stabs at it to get it
right. Trying and failing are far better than failing to try. I
needed help from God to keep on our budget and break the debt cycle. If
you'd like help from God, click on God
help me.

Way2Hope News!

Always see a licensed medical practitioner before making changes in your health an fitness practices. Advice given at this website, or in conjunction with www.way2hope.org or e-Home Fellowship activities is not to replace the advice given by a licensed professional nor be taken as a counseling or clinical relationship but only as suggestion. We're just sharing things we've discovered, as regular untrained people. As a user of this website you bear full responsibility for your decisions and actions. External websites linked from this site are for information, only. We do not endorse any product, service or treatment. As a user of this website you bear full responsibility for your decisions regarding these products, services and treatments.

Bio: Glen
Williams is Director of E-Home Fellowship, Co. and Webmaster for
http://www.way2hope.org. He founded
EHF in 2001, after more than ten years of full-time service helping people with
life problems. Now, every month, people in over 160 countries come to EHF
websites for help with their problems.